Silhouette Studio 4: Confirmed New Features and Tools

Monday, June 6, 2016

I'm
super excited to be able to share with you some of the confirmed new feature in Silhouette Studio 4. The best part is these are design features and tools A LOT of Silhouette Studio users have requested been begging for!

As one of the invited early beta testers for Silhouette Studio
4, I've been sworn to secrecy about certain things, but I have been given the go-ahead to spill some details of new features and tools that are not only coming - but have been highly demanded by Silhouette crafters.

Last week I
put the call out for requests on the Silhouette School Facebook page
and many of you chimed in which is totally awesome. I passed
along that rather lengthy 'Silhouette Studio 4 Wish List' to the people who can make them
happen (or at least consider it!) and YOU GUYS they're already on it!!

So what new features will Silhouette Studio 4 have? Without further ado...

Status bar to show how long a cut will take and time remainingin cut (will be available in 4.0 on all versions of Silhouette Studio)

Font list to display frequently used fonts at top rather than in alphabetical order

Improved display of commercial fonts

Object to Path (like text to path, but for designs!)

Keep in mind some of these, specifically the font display improvements, may not be available until 4.1 or 4.2...but they are on Silhouette's radar and they are coming!

I've also passed along other feedback and frequent requests such as a larger machine size, larger thumbnail designs in Silhouette Studio, the ability to create word art in Studio, options to export as SVG and JPEG, more basic shapes such as stars and hearts, skipping 'zoom in/out' while using the 'undo' function, and offering a direct link to designers' websites' for designs purchased from Silhouette Store.

Finally, Silhouette Studio 4 is slated to be released later this year and will work with the new CAMEO 3 as well as older machines.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I receive a small commission. That's what helps fund Silhouette School so I can keep buying new Silhouette-related products to show you how to get the most out of your machine!

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I would love to see the ruler darker for visual aid to us older people. I know probably not one of the big ones...but would be helpful. It would be great to be able to type the placement of a line or object on the page like other software.

I would like the Silhouette designs to be colored as they look, rather than empty shapes. Hope that makes sense! I hate buying a design, then opening it and having to figure out what all of the little pieces are.

This is actually an easy fix. I would like to be able to assign the fill and outline color to an object all within the same icon. The software for my Pazzles is very simple. Right click ( on a color chip) for the outline color, left click for the fill. It makes it so easy to arrange pieces of fabric and paper for cutting.

Hi, Melissa. In the latest version of Studio I noticed something annoying: when I select a shape and duplicate it, the first one remains selected, as well as the duplicated shape. This has made it more difficult to replicate shapes and control the space between them. Sometimes, when we duplicate a shape, the result either gets too far from the original shape or too close. I used to duplicate, use the arrow keys to adjust the distance, use duplicate again and thus have a full control over my page.

I've written to Silhouette America and they told me this was something people asked a lot for. I cannot imagine why people would beg for this feature. S. A. did not answer me anymore.

But you have to drag, I mean, to move your hand a bit, watching out to not move upwards or downwards. It's not so simple as to just click and have it duplicated and pressing the arrow keys just once or twice to position your new shape exactly where you need it.

Girls, I really appreciate your willing to help. But the problem is not HOW TO DUPLICATE. I know that using CTL (and not Alt, at least in Windows) + arrow also duplicates a shape. The problem is that after doing this or using the button in the replicate window, the first shape REMAINS selected, as well as the resulting shape.

I know exactly what you are talking about, Patricia. I use Ctrl+arrow all the time and it's a great tool. With the latest update they really screwed it up by allowing both objects to stay selected and now that command is worthless to me. I did complain about it when I was on a support call last week. The young girl I was talking to immediately talked to her supervisor and pointed it out. Suggested that I write to SA to request they put it back to the original working.

Wow! I am not alone! But I wonder only "Patricias" or "Pattys" complain about this? LOL

I have written to SA. Here's what they answered:

"Thank you for your email. The feature is one that has been requested by other users. We will definitely pass on your feedback to our software team, but as of right now there is not way to change it. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns. "

I wrote again. No more answers since May 17. I suggested that it could be an option. If we can choose between individual bounding boxes or a single one, why can't we chose between keeping all shapes selected and just the last duplicated one selected?

Another thing I would love to see fort he Undo function - what action the Undo is taking! Sometimes it is slow and I may hit it more times than needed. If I could see what step it was "undoing", that would be SO helpful.

You can see that if you actually go to Edit in the toolbar. Then the top option will be "Undo resize" or "Undo fill" or "Undo Erase", for example. It takes longer, but if you're trying to make sure you only undo a certain few changes it's much handier.

You can control the width. You must deselect autoapply. Then draw your line, click on the line to highlight it and then adjust the line weight. You can then move the line where you need to and then click apply.

I wish we could pick a default size though. I do most of my knife work when zoomed way in and it is a giant line.

I would love to see the zoom feature more intuitive, like most other programs. Most everything I work with (especially graphics programs), you can zoom in or out using a mouse scroll wheel or CTRL+ and CTRL-. And that would make zoom more incremental, rather than having just a few pre-defined zoom levels.

I would love to have a reference picture. Right now I go back into the store and select and copy the picture which I can save to my hard drive and print so that I have a reference picture. Some of the designs are so complex that I need a reference picture and the item in my library won't do.

Guys - we get comments everywhere - HUNDREDS a day! The 2.5 of us who work on Silhouette School try our very very best to keep up with comments on Facbook, email, social media, and the blog. If you have a problem specifically with a feature or function it's best to email as we check email multiple times a day but comments only a few times a week.

I wish every 3D design in the Design-Store had full how-to instructions attached! I don't know how many I've bought only to discover a lack of instructions even on the designer's blog or webpage. Thank you!

Personally, I'd love to be able to convert OTF/TTF to single/center line fonts. Would be nice if they included 'center line' tracing. This would be greatly appreciated when creating rhinestone designs. If there's an existing feature or workaround that does it easily like video I watched http://www.iloveknk.com/Support/Rhinestone/Videos/RT03CenterLineTracingFonts.wmv, please let me know. Thanks!

I thought I had heard/read that saving as SVG would be a feature. Is it not? Any information about this would be greatly appreciated as some of my intricate designs don't trace well in 3rd party software.

Guys - we get comments everywhere - HUNDREDS a day! The 2.5 of us who work on Silhouette School try our very very best to keep up with comments on Facbook, email, social media, and the blog. If you have a problem specifically with a feature or function it's best to email as we check email multiple times a day but comments only a few times a week.

I hope this is not impossible, but I am anxiously awaiting the day when we don't have to use those unsightly registration marks when doing print and cut.With modern technology advancing daily, we should be able to just print and cut with the machine producing a PRECISE cut without using these registration marks!!!

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